Bumping into... Xuan

Bumping Into... is a series of mini-chats with a variety of peeps that you might run into in some of our local music communities. (There's a bit of an intro and my thoughts behind the series here.)

---

How are you? Where are you?

up and down within the four walls but doing as well as I can

What have you been up to since March or so?

same old million lil different things

Have you found any new ways to do old things? How are you feeling about the shifts in how music is being made/shared/listened to?

my body feels sincerely acutely sad/bad/rad/ that it can't vibe with live sounds in the same space any more no flow only scroll It (body) is now only friends with alien beeps and slurs >120BPM n decided not to make seriously-hardly-vibing music any more It (still the body) even gets tight when seeing the word JAM It longs for SHALLOW listening LOUD bass REPEATING patterns and GROOVING with mother who only knows Mao and does not know Cage unlike you who should know that Cage was pro Mao and using I-Ching to decide on which letter to use out of 26 letters is like ok I hear you have nothing better to do bc you are so privileged that you cannot live not liberally not without a book you've borrowed so I guess I've maybe found new ways to not do old things

Any works of art that have been a light for you in these times? Anything that's just been a good diversion?

so many art crushes in these times bc of so much smoke and scroll but also bc so many shits have happened in 2020. i have to say my truth telling close friend rant on social media has felt like a good diversion of emotional excesses because one needs a space for telling the truth but not feel unsafe.

How are you feeling about 2021?

all the fucked ups will not resolve in our lifetimes however we still have to subsist n persist

Anything else we'd chat about if we bumped into each other?

how you doing? may you survive a peaceful mind

Recording: Xuan Ye + Brigitte Bardon't

Artist: Xuan Ye + Brigitte Bardon't

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Handlebar (Grandma's Secret Spices 3: A Night Of Experimental Music), August 28, 2019.

Xuan Ye + Brigitte Bardon't - [excerpt]

A rare joint set from these sonic explorers found them engaging their shared passion for expropriating and deconstructing pop culture detritus from different angles. The set played out as a tableau with two subjects, each twisting their radio dials and hearing voices in the æther — and then singing back to them. Not so much a folie à deux as a small act of act of digital defiance, claiming a spot in the sonic wasteland and making a stand.

Recording: ZOË

Artist: ZOË

Song: Tunnel

Recorded at Burdock Music Hall (The Music Gallery's Departures Series), April 18, 2019.

ZOË - Tunnel

Zoë Alexis-Abrams' namesake popsong project has been simmering for awhile, adding songs and testing different lineups and instrumental possibilities, but this was one of those shows that felt like a bold announcement something has arrived. Focusing on vocal performance instead of keybs, Alexis-Abrams instead led a keyboard trio on stage, her gestures conducting Xuan Ye, Kvesche Bijons-Ebacher, and Amelia H. in glorious bursts of circuit-bent soul. The other key change here was the addition of percussionist D. Alex Meeks, powering the tracks with his precision grooves. It was the sort of set where you just wanted to call up 4AD and hold your phone toward the stage until they sent someone down to make the band into international stars.

[A slightly different version of the band will be joining in for a night of "moody tunes from broody heads" alongside Bunny and Hank the Kid (a new project from Henri Fabergé) at Handlebar tonight (Thursday, July 4th). ]

Recording: Invisible Out

Artist: Invisible Out

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Handlebar, January 31, 2019.

Invisible Out - [excerpt]

A sort of radiophonic workout from this duo, with some midi piano, contact mic'd objects and manipulated popsong samples in their livestream.

Recording: Xuan Ye

Artist: Xuan Ye

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Music Gallery (Emergents I), December 2, 2018.

Xuan Ye - [excerpt 1]

Xuan Ye - [excerpt 2]

Known for a steady flow of creative developments — and never playing the same set with the same gear twice — Xuan Ye kept things DIY here, deploying a trio of oscillating fans as sound sources and finding ways to generate sonic changes with interventions like adding a bit of feedback or taping on a garbage bag. There was also some good ol' fashioned interspecies communication, with Notable Local Pug Lana Del Satan adding some taps and jangles while running for treats around the bases of the fans. The coda heard here, with some meditative piano chords, complemented the fans' new take on furniture music.

[The Music Gallery's Emergents Series continues on Saturday (January 19th), with new electronic explorations from April Aliermo (Hooded Fang/Phèdre) and Sun Sun (Above Top Secret/Witch Prophet) — two sound-creators this blog has been a fan of for ages.]

Recording: Xuan Ye + David Jones

Artist: Xuan Ye + David Jones

Song: [act 1, scene 2]

Recorded at The Baby G, September 21, 2017.

Xuan Ye + David Jones - [act 1, scene 2]

Billed as "a night dedicated to simplicity and unravelling," this was a beautifully-executed show, moving the music down from the stage and tampering with the standard set/break/set/break/set pattern to give the whole thing some continuous flow.

That flow was facilitated by this joint enterprise, a more elaborately-conceived and executed effort than I've seen from this pair of occasional collaborators. They claimed a large square of the floor in front of the stage, delineated by speakers in the corners creating a home-spun quad system. Without announcing themselves, they eased into it, letting the room's attention slowly turn their way as they built up from a quiet start, each with their own set of tools: vox, percussive implements, guit and spotlight on the one hand, pedals, manipulated vocals, trumpet (!) and sound-activated lights on the other. And it would turn out that the pair would be the connective tissue throughout the night, returning to play between the other sets, which segued from their evolving dronescapes.

Recording: Nick Storring and ensemble

Artist: Nick Storring and ensemble

Song: Epigeous Memory [excerpt] [composer: Nick Storring]

Recorded at Allan Gardens (Intersection – Day 4), September 4, 2017.

Nick Storring and ensemble - Epigeous Memory [excerpt]

In recent years, the Intersection Festival would normally consist of a paid concert, usually the night before the day-long extravaganza in Yonge-Dundas Square. This year, however, under the continued guidance of Burn Down The Capital's Tad Michalak, the festival expanded to four events, including a pair of concerts at The Jam Factory. New this year, and bringing things to a most delightful conclusion, was this free afternoon inside the conservatories at Allan Gardens, mixing a variety of performers into the varied microenvironments — despite the crowds filling the greenhouses to the brim, it was a wonderfully serene occasion.

In the far corner of the Tropical House, Nick Storring gathered this small group — his cello, plus Xuan Ye (harmonium, melodica, percussion), Colin Fisher (saxophone and pop can) and Brodie West (saxophone) — while the turtles over in the pond sat patiently and listened. This site-specific piece was written to encourage the performers to wander in the room and spacialize their sound, but it was too crowded for that. Instead, they referred to score pages with labels like "Agenda" and "Appendix", drifting through the piece like a meandering tune.

[You can see some footage from this set over at Brandon Caswell Douglas' Intersection playlist.]

Recording: Invisible Out

Artist: Invisible Out

Songs: [noisy section] + [unknown song]^*

Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (Intersection – Day 3), September 2, 2017.

Invisible Out - [noisy section]

Invisible Out - [unknown song]

In recent years, the Intersection Festival would normally consist of a paid concert, usually the night before the day-long extravaganza in Yonge-Dundas Square. This year, however, under the continued guidance of Burn Down The Capital's Tad Michalak the festival expanded to four events, including a pair of concerts at The Jam Factory. The day-long marathon in the concrete canyon of commerce remains at the festival's heart, though, exploring the frissons of experiencing strange and occasionally abrasive sounds competing with the city's mersh heartbeat.

Bringing back some of the guitar noise and rock-star moves that they explored in their proto-Invisible Out phase, Xuan Ye and Jason Doell brought some conceptual art-rock to the square, though this time 'round the execution was a bit more practised and thought-through in its attempt to deconstruct itself.

[Invisible Out will be ping-ponging back to their quieter side, playing this weekend's edition of Christopher Willes' Quiet Concerts series at the Scarborough Civic Centre branch of the Toronto Public Library.]

[You can see some footage from this set over at Brandon Caswell Douglas' Intersection playlist.]

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Invisible Out

Artist: Invisible Out

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Steady Café (Track Could Bend #30), August 1, 2017.

Invisible Out - [excerpt]

Changing their sound and setup to suit their environment, Xuan Ye and Jason Doell brought less electroacoustic bricabrac this time around, depending more on laptops and social media feed-loops. Hewing to the mellower side of things, the mantra for this set was "no peaks" — a fitting start to a night of drone-drift.

[Track Could Bend returns on Tuesday (September 5th) with some excellent voices and other sounds featuring MAMALIA, Lash Pandiculations (Tova G. Kardonne, Heather Saumer, Ali Berkok) and jiggy jiggy jiggy (Christopher Willes, Thom Gill, Phil Melanson).]

Recording: Xuan Ye

Artist: Xuan Ye

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Seven Sonorous Scintillators), July 16, 2017.

Xuan Ye - [excerpt]

Celebrating the release of her You've Just Become Part of Me album of selected comprovisations, Xuan Ye gathered a collection of friends, collaborators and fellow travellers to celebrate, including a Drone Therapy session from Kristel Jax and some jams from DJ New Chance. There was something of a chapter closing/chapter opening feel to this show, with the album release marking the end to a period of intense solo performance that saw radically unique sets from an artist reluctant to re-use past ideas/set-ups. Joining in on percussion and piano during Zoë Alexis-Abrams & Johnny Spence's last song before segueing into her own short-ish set to cap the show off felt like a nod to a direction Ye has been discussing, foregrounding collaboration instead of individual effort. Expect voluminous ideas to keep flowing in any case.

[Xuan Ye + David Jones will be collaborating at a sure-to-be-wonderful show with ANAMAI and YlangYlang, Thursday, September 21st at The Baby G.]

Recording: Invisible Out

Artist: Invisible Out

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Burdock Music Hall (TONE Festival – Show #2/Music Gallery Departures Series), June 15, 2017.

Invisible Out - [excerpt]

Although the local "jazz" festival is anticipated in some quarters, it seemed that too often there was no home there for adventurous and experimental creators. Thus, out of necessity, the TONE Festival was born to give these touring musicians a chance to connect with local audiences and artists. A collaboration between Burn Down the Capital's Tad Michalak, Ron Gaskin (a.k.a. Rough Idea) and Karen Ng and Daniel Pencer, the goal was to create shows that were rewarding for players and listeners alike. Multitasking Tad Michalak managed to use his position as curator for the Music Gallery's offsite Departures series to bring some big names under the TONE banner, but he also included some slight-of-hand counter-programming in deploying an entirely different sort of improvising project to start the night off. I've seen Xuan Ye and Jason Doell doing plenty of things in their own projects, but this collaborative set pushed some of their individual quirks and tricks into a different zone. Call it "ring pop pop", with all sorts of apps, found sounds and found objects being deconstructed and rewired into their sound-field.

[My recording of the whole set can be found over on IO's bandcamp. Xuan Ye will be celebrating her new double album You've Just Become Part of Me with an evening of performances at the Tranzac on Sunday, July 16th, with guests Heraclitus Akimbo & Jason Doell, Brigitte Bardon't and Zoë Alexis-Abrams & Johnny Spence joining in.]

Recording: APA

Artist: APA

Songs: APA - [two excerpts]

Recorded at Ratio (Decreation – Night 4), June 10, 2017.

APA - [excerpt 1]

APA - [edited excerpt #2]

Given the internal and external pressures that come to bear, it's no surprise that no DIY space lasts forever. It still made it a sad occasion to learn that Ratio was winding down its active presence, news leavened slightly with the corresponding announcement of a series of farewell shows, with many artists making a final return to the space. Never playing the same set twice, Xuan Ye deployed a couple different technologies in her set, unified by some underlying sonic disruptions. The first section saw her on laptop and phone, creating soundbursts trickling beneath wibble-wobble glitchnoise. After investigating the possible sounds to be derived from looping a microphone being shaken around in a backpack, the mic was given further percussive duties, thudding against the wood of the piano. Later on, a melodica would make an appearance, its reediness hinting at accordion-sounds and suggesting some kind of bizarro-world Parisian café tune.

[Stay tuned for the forthcoming details of APA's CD launch event.]

Recording: Manticore feat. James Beardmore + Xuan Ye

Artist: Manticore feat. James Beardmore + Xuan Ye

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at The Tranzac's Main Hall (Somewhere There Creative Music Festival – Show 3), February 25, 2017.

Manticore feat. James Beardmore + Xuan Ye - unknown

For this special festival performance, Manticore doubled in size, with Zoë Alexis-Abrams and David Jones being joined by Xuan Ye (a.k.a. APA) on piano, voice and miscellaneous processed sounds and James Beardmore (a.k.a. Cares) on theremin. The extended sonics let the songs ripple and expand into a sort of abstract haze where time runs forward and backwards simultaneously.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Xuan Ye with Zoë Alexis-Abrams

Artist: Xuan Ye with Zoë Alexis-Abrams

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Wolf's Nacho Wednesdays: Abundant Habitat 1), August 24, 2016.

Xuan Ye with Zoë Alexis-Abrams - [excerpt]

Besides a contact mic and Honeytone amp, Xuan Ye mostly used "found objects" from the Southern Cross in this set — the piano, parts of the house drum kit, some balloons scattered around as decoration. Later on, Zoë Alexis-Abrams (who put this night and its companion a week later together) joined in, flexing her chair for some artful squeaks and joining in on the balloonophonics and vocal abstractions.

Recording: APA + Jason Doell

Artist: APA + Jason Doell

Song: History [Duck Fight Goose cover]^*

Recorded at Double Double Land (NASA – Noise Against Sexual Assault), July 10, 2016.

APA + Jason Doell - History

Envisioned as "a night of noise, dark electronic, and doom rock in support of sexual assault survivors and in solidarity with Larkin Grimm", this event was programmed as a counter-gig to Swans' local appearance. It was also an attempt for DIY spaces to face up to the problems of taking responsibility for what happens within their walls and to begin a discussion of some "best practices" to create safer spaces.

Xuan Ye (a.k.a APA) has brought a different sort of noise — from howling piano to erhu skronking — every time I've seen her perform, but I was surprised once again when for this set she pivoted to full-on "rock star", channelling her inner PJ Harvey on a cover of "To Bring You My Love". She was backed for this mini-set by Jason Doell — recently seen as a composer or noise-maker — making a rare atavistic throwback appearance to his rock'n'roll days.

^* Thanks to APA for passing along the title to this one.

Recording: Xuan Ye

Artist: Xuan Ye

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Array Space (Solonation), June 25, 2016.

Xuan Ye - [excerpt]

Planned as an ongoing semi-annual series, this night was the brainchild of Audiopollination's Mike Lynn. Whereas that series is centred around the idea of small-group spontaneous improvisation, this night was more about celebrating a wider range of creative musical practices in a quintet of short solo sets.

Xuan Ye took a "solo" turn from her APA project for this set of piano music. She accompanied herself with several varieties of feedback generated from the grand piano's body, sometimes with one drowning out the other and at times with both sounds in a weird co-operation. Although the orthodox response to this might be to treat it like a painter tossing a pot of ink on a finished canvas, the point here seemed to be a reaction against the old-fashioned hierarchicalism that would privilege the piano's melody over the feedback's piercing discord.

The show was also livestreamed and has been archived on youtube. You can check out the full set here:

[APA will be playing at the NASA (Noise Against Sexual Assault) event at Double Double Land on Sunday, July 10th.]

Recording: David Jones + APA

Artist: David Jones + APA

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at Dundas Video (Track Could Bend #13), April 5, 2016.

David Jones + APA - [excerpt]

To my great surprise and delight, Track Could Bend has survived and thrived for a full year. To celebrate, I invited everyone who played the series' first twelve months (more than seventy people!) back for a birthday party. In the end, the night consisted of twenty-seven musicians collaborating over eight short sets, most of which were spontaneous "bands from a hat", drawn by lot before the set started. Given the wide range of musical practices and backgrounds, it was quite exciting to see how much coherence and excellence resulted.

There are electromagnetic fields all around us, moved by us and passing through us. Are they ghosts, in but not quite of our world — or is it the other way around? Maybe it's our clumsy bodies and crude tools that are the impositions on a realm of pure energy. That mysterious zone between the two was tentatively mapped out in an exploratory joint expedition from APA (who played at TCB#8) and David Jones (TCB#11). APA tore some sonic fragments from the physical world while Jones (via a homemade Elektrosluch) tugged the invisible waves from a table full of of cellphones and electronic devices into the audible spectrum. Not overtly concerned with obvious musicality, this sonic sculpture created a faint sense of dislocation — like standing beside a hydro pole and feeling the hairs on the back of your neck bristle.

[The next Track Could Bend will be at Dundas Video on Tuesday, May 3rd, featuring Kosher Dill Spears, Terms Of Venery (Mike Smith, solo electronics) and Glamour Nails (Lina Allemano + Justin Haynes).]

Recording: Alexandr Nabokov + Buck McKenzie

Artist: Alexandr Nabokov + Buck McKenzie

Song: Alexandr Nabokov + Buck McKenzie - [excerpt]

Recorded at Array Space ("Audiopollination 36"), November 10, 2015.

Alexandr Nabokov + Buck McKenzie - [excerpt]

Another night in Audiopollination's ongoing self-curation series saw a series of duets. This pseudonymous duo closed out the night with the evening's noisiest sounds, starting with loops of erhu and guitar, pausing for a piano detour before ending in feedback-lacked shouts.

[This year's self-curation series concludes Tuesday, December 8th at Array Space.]